I thought the majority of the big cruisers and aircraft carriers were not stationed at the base the day of the attack? Am I mistaken?

 

No just the aircraft carriers were spared. And at the time aircraft carriers were not considered as important as battleships. The entire Pacific fleet was stationed at Pearl Harbor that day.

 

Japan destroyed 4 of the 8 US battleships, and severely damaged the other 4. The entire fleet absent the carriers were stationed at Pearl Harbor that day. Around 400 airplanes, which half were destroyed and many others damaged.

 

While there were other cruisers, destroyers and transports through out the Pacific, every single US battleship was at Pearl Harbor that day. Including ones that were recalled from the trip to Wake Island. The entire US Pacific fleet was basically at risk, and there is no way that FDR or his advisors would consider it an acceptable risk. If they had known you would have seen a drastic reduction of the force at Pearl Harbor, and had some sort of counter attack plan.

 

All FDR needed was Japan to attack the US and declare war, he didnt need Japan to decimate Pearl Harbor. Even if just a few American's had been killed, the result would have been the same. No American would have accepted Japan attacking the US and not wanting retribution. Therefore if FDR would have known, he would have most likely tried to trick the Japanese into thinking they had caught the US off guard but then trapped them.

 

Germany declares war on the US before the US even needed to declare war on it.

 

FDR was trying to get the US involved in the war, but mainly in Europe. The Pear Harbor attack caught the US completely off guard. The US did not even declare war on Germany or Italy instantly, and its actually hard to say what the US would of done had Hitler and Mussolini not declared.

 

But Hitler wanted to use the US for more propaganda (his speech blames the US for Pearl Harbor and basically calls the US tyrants etc) and at that point was so caught up in his megalomania that he didnt even consider the possibility that he couldnt take down the US.

 

So in the end, I cant possibly believe FDR would risk so much for war with Japan, when his real concern was Europe and had no way of knowing whether Hitler would stay loyal to Japan (he had already turned on Stalin earlier in the year). Most likely if it was up to FDR, the US would have exclusively fought Germany and then dealt with Japan after Hitler was defeated.

 

Here is what FDR's secretary wrote:

 

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pearl3.htm

 

Knox, whose Navy had suffered the worst damage, and Stimson were cross-examined closely on what had happened, on why they believed it could have happened, on what might happen next and on what they could do to repair to some degree the disaster.

 

Within the first hour it was evident that the Navy was dangerously crippled, that the Army and Air Force were not fully prepared to guarantee safety from further shattering setbacks in the Pacific. It was easy to speculate that a Jap invasion force might be following their air strike at Hawaii - or that the West Coast itself might' be marked for similar assault.

 

It wasnt a conspiracy, it wouldnt make sense.

Edited June 2, 201015 yr by Soxbadger

FDR seemed to know that an attack was coming at some point somewhere from Japan, but I don't believe for a nanosecond that he intentionally left the bulk of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, knowing an attack would destroy a good portion of it and kill thousands of people.

Don't worry, Americans aren't the only ones who love crazy conspiracy theories. I have a client who still tells me that the "fog" at the Russian airport where the Polish president's plane crashed was not actually fog. No, it was from smoke bombs set off by the Russians to purposely make the plane go down.

I thought the majority of the big cruisers and aircraft carriers were not stationed at the base the day of the attack? Am I mistaken?

There really was no such thing as a "Big cruiser", but the big battleships were all at Pearl, and all of the aircraft carriers were stationed there. It was either sheer luck or the greatest foresight in military history that they weren't in port on the morning of the 7th; the Enterprise and Yorktown were off delivering a shipment of planes to Wake Island that day.

Awesome thread, by the way.

One minor correction, 2 of the 8 battleships were actually sunk. 2 took significant hits but were eventually repaired and went back into use.

In my opinion 4 were sunk. (California, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona)

 

They refloated and salvaged 2 of them (California and West Virginia). They were only able to do this due to the shallow water of Pearl Harbor.

 

Had it been in open ocean those boats were gone. I was going with the fact that 4 ships were put on the bottom of the sea (ie not floating anymore), it just happened that the shallow water prevented 2 of the ships from actually going fully underwater. But they were sitting on the bottom, which to me is sunk.

 

It basically is just how you use the terms. As the 2 of them would eventually be repaired and reused. But at the time, they were sunk.

The more I have read about FDR in the time period of 1939 to Dec 6, 1941, the less I agree with that. He talked over and over again about needing the one incident to be able to break down the isolationist movement in the US, and he had been taking us step by step to war, without most of the country realizing it. He himself was busted by the one and only Chicago Tribune days before the Japanese attack that there would need to be millions of troops sent to Europe to defeat Hitler, and that meant us. Everything indicates he wanted it to happen. FDR even lied about the events of a couple of our incidents in the Atlantic with the Nazi's to try to make the case for war more palatable to America.

 

FDR also knew by ordering an oil embargo against Japan, they would have to start attacking either the Dutch East Indies (Britain) or the USSR, which had already been attacked by Germany, to find an oil supply. Heck reading some of the things that FDR and Churchill were talking about during that time period that have been released, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he knew Pearl Harbor was coming ahead of time.

I think all of what you've said is more due to the idea that FDR probably read the situation and figured war was inevitable, and wanted to shape American entry into the war on his own terms but the political environment at the time left him unable to do so. The Japanese, also, were giving him a really hard time because on the surface in front of everyone else they were talking peace, saying that war can be avoided etc., but in their diplomatic cables they were talking about the possibility of war. FDR did know that, but it's not like he could publicly talk about it. As Balta pointed out, Japan just made a really bad strategic reading of the United States' intentions towards them and reacted accodingly. I don't think the fact that Pearl Harbor happened to be politically convenient for him necessarily means he knew about it ahead of time and wanted it to happen. The information was actually ready and there, but it was nowhere near ready enough to actually be useful to FDR.

Don't worry, Americans aren't the only ones who love crazy conspiracy theories. I have a client who still tells me that the "fog" at the Russian airport where the Polish president's plane crashed was not actually fog. No, it was from smoke bombs set off by the Russians to purposely make the plane go down.

Arabs have some pretty hilarious conspiracy theories. This one guy asked me once if I was a Jew, and when I started to laugh at him he said somebody told him that all Americans in Iraq were actually Jews from Israel wearing U.S. military uniforms and the entire war was all a massive manipulation on the part of the Israelis. Another one asked if we (U.S. troops) were leaving Iraq soon and I said I wish, but no. Then he said oh that's a relief because I thought you were just going to put Saddam back in charge and leave. I said that was funny as hell, and asked why the f*** would we do something like that? He was like oh, yeah I guess I didn't think of that.

I doubt any of them involved conspiracy, but if I had to pick one, it would have to be FDR and Pearl Harbor.

 

I would agree with this.

I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all.

I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all.

I'll borrow from my paragraph above

 

I don't think the fact that 9-11 happened to be politically convenient for him necessarily means he knew about it ahead of time and wanted it to happen.

 

If it was really a government-orchestrated conspiracy to get us to go to war it is probably the sloppiest and dumbest goal of a conspiracy of all time, because there's been no net benefit from it whatsoever.

The only conspiracy that I could possibly buy into with regards to 911 is if Flight 93 crashed or if it was shot down.

I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all.

 

They probably believe it was a missile that hit the Pentagon.

If it was really a government-orchestrated conspiracy to get us to go to war it is probably the sloppiest and dumbest goal of a conspiracy of all time, because there's been no net benefit from it whatsoever.

IT depends on who was doing the organizing. You could certainly say that a lot of defense contractors have benefited from it massively.

The only conspiracy that I could possibly buy into with regards to 911 is if Flight 93 crashed or if it was shot down.

Honestly, given the situation, I don't see why you don't just come out and say "it was shot down" if it was. People would have understood it under those circumstances, and the blowback would have been minimal. On the other hand, if just one pilot or tower controller or witness had shown that the White House tried to cover it up, that would have been pretty big damage. So I don't see the net gain in covering that up.

 

I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all.

 

there's all sorts of crazy ideas out there. The main ones are, I think, a government plot to go to war, some insurance scam for the guy that owned the WTC, and, of course, the jews/ Mosad are responsible.

 

Generally, they think a missile hit the Pentagon and that the WTC buildings were wired with demolition charges.

 

there's all sorts of crazy ideas out there. The main ones are, I think, a government plot to go to war, some insurance scam for the guy that owned the WTC, and, of course, the jews/ Mosad are responsible.

 

Generally, they think a missile hit the Pentagon and that the WTC buildings were wired with demolition charges.

If you want a good explanation, go find the first episode of the show "The Lone Gunman".

 

There's a creepy shot of what it would look like looking through the front windows of a plane...flying into the world trade center.

 

The episode ran in about 2000.

there's all sorts of crazy ideas out there. The main ones are, I think, a government plot to go to war, some insurance scam for the guy that owned the WTC, and, of course, the jews/ Mosad are responsible.

 

Generally, they think a missile hit the Pentagon and that the WTC buildings were wired with demolition charges.

 

This one drives me crazy. With all of the people, time, and equiptment needed to undertake this operation, NO ONE has made a first hand account of either doing it, or seeing it done.

This one drives me crazy. With all of the people, time, and equiptment needed to undertake this operation, NO ONE has made a first hand account of either doing it, or seeing it done.

Not to mention that thousands of people SAW the first plane hit, and millions saw the the second one hit.

 

Not to mention that thousands of people SAW the first plane hit, and millions saw the the second one hit.

I don't think the conspiracy denies that the buildings were hit by planes, but instead denies that the plane impacts were why the buildings went down; especially with building 7, which didn't collapse until later in the day.

I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all.

I'm a pretty tough person to offend, but I honestly get offended and appalled at the talk of the 9/11 conspiracy. I can't believe that people think the government would pull something like that off.

 

Pearl Harbor would be one thing and even than while I talk about the possibility that FDR knew, I think the most likely scenario is he had an inkling an attack was happening but he didn't know the exact date and time, etc, so it was hard to truly be prepared.

 

This one drives me crazy. With all of the people, time, and equiptment needed to undertake this operation, NO ONE has made a first hand account of either doing it, or seeing it done.

That is what I find ridiculous. There is no way this conspiracy could be done and kept quiet because so many people would have needed to be involved. It is completely preposterous. And than there is the fact that it would take that many people in our government, etc, to be willing to kill that many innocent people. I can't even fathom that being the case.

That is what I find ridiculous. There is no way this conspiracy could be done and kept quiet because so many people would have needed to be involved. It is completely preposterous. And than there is the fact that it would take that many people in our government, etc, to be willing to kill that many innocent people. I can't even fathom that being the case.

 

Now contrast that with the amount of people who "witnessed" something to do with the JFK assassination.

NASA faking the moon landing is another consipiracy that should be added to the list.